Customers shop for Christmas trees at a Home Depot Inc. store on Black Friday in Hawthorne, California, Nov 27, 2020. (PATRICK T FALLON / AFP)

LONDON / ADDIS ABABA / RIO DE JANEIRO / SANTIAGO / ATHENS / DUBLIN / TRIPOLI / NEW YORK / BUENOS AIRES / KIEV / BERLIN - The US added 205,568 new cases Friday, a record, as some states resumed daily updates following the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday.

The increase brings the total for the country to 13.1 million. Deaths increased by 1,433 to 264,850. The CDC said in a tweet that forecasts predict as many as 21,400 new deaths may be reported during the week ending Dec 19, with up to 321,000 fatalities. It also warned that cases and hospitalizations are rising.

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Africa

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the African continent has reached 2,120,967, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Friday.

The continental disease control and prevention agency said in a statement that the death toll related to the pandemic stood at 50,924 as of Friday afternoon.

A total of 1,791,600 people infected with COVID-19 have recovered across the continent so far, according to the continental disease control and prevention agency.

Argentina

Argentina reported 275 new COVID-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the nationwide total to 38,216, the country's Health Ministry said Friday.

Meanwhile, 7,846 new cases were reported, taking the national count to 1,407,277. A total of 1,235,257 patients have recovered from the disease so far and 133,804 cases were still active, according to the ministry. The province of Buenos Aires, with 614,872 cases, is the most affected district.

Brazil

Brazil on Friday reported 514 more deaths from COVID-19, raising its total death toll to 171,974.

According to the Ministry of Health, tests detected 34,130 new cases, pushing the accumulated caseload to 6,238,350.

Brazil has the world's second-highest COVID-19 death toll, after the United States, and the third largest caseload, next to the United States and India.

Chile

Chile on Friday reported 1,570 new daily cases of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infection, bringing its accumulated caseload to 547,223.

In the same 24 hours, 43 more patients died of the disease, raising the death toll to 15,278, according to the Ministry of Health.

People wearing face masks walk past a florist in Paris, on Oct 31, 2020. (STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP)

France

France reported 12,459 new cases on Friday for a total of 2.2 million, while the seven-day average of infections fell 11 percent from a day earlier to 12,421, the lowest since Oct 6. That’s as the rate of positive tests has dropped to 11.7 percent, almost 9 percentage points lower than in the first week of November.

Hospitalizations and the number of Covid patients in intensive care continued to decline from a peak 11 days ago. Deaths linked to the coronavirus increased by 957 to 51,914, while the seven-day average continued a week-long decline.

France’s overall mortality appears to have peaked on Nov. 7, when deaths from all causes numbered 2,281, statistics office Insee reported. That’s lower than during the first wave of the pandemic, when the country registered 2,810 deaths on April 1.

Germany

Germany’s partial lockdown measures could be extended until early Spring if infections are not brought under control, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday.

Altmaier told Die Welt it was not possible to give the all-clear while there were incidences of more than 50 infections per 100,000 inhabitants in large parts of Germany.

“We have three to four long winter months ahead of us,” he was quoted as saying. “It is possible that the restrictions will remain in place in the first months of 2021.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed with leaders of Germany’s 16 federal states on Wednesday to extend and tighten measures against the coronavirus until at least Dec. 20.

Germany imposed a “lockdown light” in early November, which closed bars and restaurants but allowed schools and shops to stay open. The measures have stopped the exponential growth of cases but infections have stabilised at a high level.

There were 21,695 new confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Saturday, bringing total cases since the pandemic began to 1,028,089.

Greece

Greece's confirmed COVID-19 cases surpassed the 100,000 mark on Friday after another 2,013 infections were identified in the past 24 hours, authorities announced.

The total infections now stand at 101,287 since the first case was diagnosed on Feb. 26, according to the National Public Health Organization (EODY).

During the past 24 hours, 101 patients died, bringing the total deaths to 2,102 since the start of the pandemic. Moreover, 607 patients are currently intubated, while 538 have been discharged from intensive care units (ICUs) in the past nine months.

Ireland

The Irish government announced on Friday night that the country's current Level-5 or the highest COVID-19 restrictions will be lowered to Level-3 on Dec. 1.

Under the Level-3 restrictions, all the non-essential retail outlets and personal services such as barbershops can resume business again, people can move freely so long as they do not travel outside their own county, and gatherings of no more than 15 people may take place outdoors, according to a statement released by the Irish government on its website.

Libya

Libya confirmed 866 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total toll to 81,273, the country's National Center for Disease Control said on Friday.

The center said in a statement it had received a total of 3,995 suspected samples, of which 866 tested positive, adding that 714 patients recovered while 13 others died.

Libya has recorded 52,299 recoveries and 1,153 fatalities in total, the center said.

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Ukraine

Ukraine's national COVID-19 caseload reached 709,701 on Saturday, after the country reported a record daily increase of 16,294 cases during the past 24 hours, its health ministry reported.

Meanwhile, 184 patients have died of the disease, bringing the nationwide death toll to 12,093, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said.

Women wearing a face mask or covering due to the COVID-19 pandemic, view flowers displayed for sale at an outdoor market in York, northern England on Nov 27, 2020, as life under a second lockdown continues. (OLI SCARFF / AFP)

UK

The COVID-19 epidemic in Britain has retreated slightly, with the reproduction “R” number estimated to be below 1, suggesting that England’s second national lockdown is stemming infections, government scientists said on Friday.

The number of new infections across Britain is shrinking by between 0 percent and 2 percent every day, the UK Government Office for Science said, after it was estimated to be growing between 0% and 2% in last week’s release.

The R number was estimated to be between 0.9 and 1, meaning every 10 people infected will go on to infect between 9 and 10 people, down from last week’s range of 1.0-1.1.

Government scientists said the estimates were based on latest data for the United Kingdom up to Nov 24, but that lags meant the impact of national restrictions introduced in England on Nov 5 were only just being seen and could not yet be fully evaluated.

“R estimates for England may continue to decline in the future and may be below 1 for all regions already,” the Government Office for Science said in a statement.

The lockdown in England - home to around 85 percent of the UK’s total population - expires on Wednesday and will be replaced with a regional system of tiered restrictions.

US

The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States topped 13 million on Friday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

US COVID-19 case count rose to 13,047,202, with a total of 264,624 deaths, as of 4:26 pm local time (2126 GMT), according to the CSSE tally.